Who Saw This Coming? Part 2

During a morning pandering session in Mississippi today, Rick Santorum attacked President Obama over the continued "unraveling" of Afghanistan by attributing recent events to giving the enemy "hope."

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss.–As he mingled with the Mississippi breakfast crowd, Rick Santorum said the president’s timeline in Afghanistan “has made a very winnable operation very, very difficult.”

“It continues to unravel because the president has given something to the enemy that we should have been able to deny them, which is hope,” Santorum said, referring to the withdrawal timeline, which would have American troops out of Afghanistan by 2014. “But when the president put a timeline in place, the rules of engagement that he has…he’s made this a very difficult mission, as we see it getting more and more difficult as we get closer to that timeline.”

We've been in their country for over a decade and 9 children, 3 women, and 4 men were just murdered while they were asleep in their beds by one of our soldiers. If there's anything they're fresh out of, it's hope.

I doubt Rick Santorum could tell you who exactly the enemy is, thus I will inevitably conclude that he believes no one in Afghanistan should have hope, because they're all the enemy. And the president has supposedly given them hope, so he must be one of them, right?

Perhaps Santorum needs a speechwriter and a teleprompter. It might prevent him from talking out of the seat of his pants.

Brutlyhonest

They will never acknowledge that the only reason we’re still in Afghanistan is because of the resources wasted in Iraq. But hey, the Iraqis purportedly tried to kill poppy. Also, too: Uncle Saddam failed to kick Iran’s ass like he was paid to.

One of the things that disappointed me most about Colin Powell’s time w/BushCo was the way he let them run over the solid military doctrine that bore his name. A key component of the Powell Doctrine was to have a planned exit strategy so we didn’t get bogged down somewhere by mission creep. It also required overwhelming force. Rummy & crew decided people could be replaced by technology and planning past the warm welcoming embraces of those we had liberated was unnecessary. Colossal asshats.

http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

I was really pissed at Powell for the role he played in the lead up to the Iraqi war. However, after a while I realized that he was as much in the dark as the rest of us when it came to WMD in Iraq (I’m pretty certain that Rummy and Co cut his info sources completely off, so he had to rely on everyone else’s assessments–just like they wanted him to). Furthermore, he was just one man. What was he supposed to do…stride into Rummy’s office and slap the sh*t out of him, make him do the right thing? Powell and his closest ally (Richard Armitage) were facing Rummy and all his cronies, the Darth Cheney and his political and financial team (ie, private industry lobbyists), and then the President himself. Other than instigating a coup, there wasn’t anything Powell could have done. It’s too easy for us to sit back and say, “he should of…”.

Brutlyhonest

He should have resigned. He has said he stayed out of loyalty; unfortunately he let his loyalty to a man trump his loyalty to the Country.

Yes, he was misled; most of us were. It turns out that the neocon cabal knew the intelligence we were all using to make decisions was not reliable. But it fit their agenda so it was hand-picked and spoon fed. Once he knew he was duped, he should have left.

I’m very aware of the facts of the run up to war with Iraq. I was working in a planning cell as a certain national intelligence agency rep and remember the Marine General being dumbfounded that we would stop working the Afghan mission to plan to invade Iraq when (a) they had nothing to do with 9/11 and (2) even if they had WMD Saddam was not a threat outside the Gulf Region. The only terrorist organization that existed in Iraq was an anti-Iran one.

Bottom line is, the foray into Iraq was a debacle in many ways. As a fellow Officer, I had an incredible amount of respect for Powell until he stayed after knowing he was played. And no, I didn’t arrive at that decision easily.

http://drangedinaz.wordpress.com/ IrishGrrrl

Wow, so you did have an atypical inside perspective. That’s cool and I appreciate your viewpoint. When Powell said he remained out of loyalty was it to Bush or to principles though? I honestly thought he stayed because of loyalty to the country, that he wanted to provide at least one voice of reason amid the cacophony of Neocons.

Brutlyhonest

Thanks for taking the time to reply. My wording at that time of the morning seems a bit brusque looking at it now.

I can’t remember what show I say powell on where he said he felt he had to stay out of loyalty to the man who asked him to take the job. I had sympathy for him until that day.

quakerinabasement

Is it just too much to expect these clowns to be coherent? I won’t understand until somebody walks me through it nice and slow, but for the life of me I don’t see how he got from 16 civilians murdered to the president giving the enemy hope.